Hi, I hope to be living in Italy by the end of the year and looking for advise on Mobile phone companies. Can anyone recommend or point me in a direction of any mobile companies that are worth looking at.
I will be moving just north of Pescia, and for this reason is the coverage as a major decision as living rural England ?
Also while on the subject of communication anyone got any recommendations for broadband providers and point me in the direction of any websites.

Any help much appreciated

Paul

WIND; TIM; Vodafone; 3 etc. All much of a muchness really. You can check (what they claim to be) their coverage on line. Things can change frequently as the install new repeaters. The best thing would probably be to go visit the area and ask the locals, or make a small investment by purchasing PAYG SIM cards from a couple of providers, and try them out.

A bit of a coincidence your post. I just logged on with the intention of posting about mobile phone services. My mobile provider is TIM with pay as you go sims. I located a special offer they had at 10 eurines per month, gives me 2gb. internet, 400 mins of calls to mobile/landline numbers, 1000 mms's, 1 free favourite number, and unlimited streaming of Timmusic. Quite good I thought. However, the point of my post is to give credit where credit is due. Yesterday I had cause to call their helpline, usual recorded instructions, press this, press that, but in the end talked to an actual human being/ Very helpful and talked me through a configuration problem due to phone being an unlocked non-tim Google nexus. Blow me down if I didn't receive a phone call from them 10 mins/ ago asking if their advice had been helpful, and if everything was working OK. So full marks to TIM for customer service. I won't be bothering looking up the various Vodafones, Winds, etc. any more.
bye bye dicette l'inglese

It's interesting that fixing a problem inspires customer loyalty even more than being problem-free (hope that hyphen's in the right place, jonwel!). It's just so re-assuring.

TIM and WIND are the Main Carriers in Italy. The others Voda and 3 actually use (TIM / WIND) networks where they are not available.

So what does this mean. In the mountains (Piacenza) for example, nothing works on 3G except TIM whilst near Como I can get 3 (Three).

So if you have a package (say data) on 3, working in Piacenza, you will get no 3G data ability ust the ability to receive/make calls (2G) and WIND/Voda are not there.

Personally, I have been told that to have continuous coverage in Italy, TIM is the perferred unless you not travelling around the country much.

Take a TIM PAYG SIM and see. I remember if you have 2 TIMs then the calls between them are free if you top up 5 euros per week. (I think

Remember you will need ID and CdF for any mobile number in Italy

I broadly agree with this in that TIM has by far the best overall coverage in this area (from paractical experience), and in general appears to be the best all-round choice unless there are specific local factors that sway the decision in favour of another company.

Don't agree at all however that you need ID and CF to get a mobile number. A passport should be sufficient. If somebody refuses to supply against a passport, tell them you'll go elsewhere - and if necessary do so.

COVERAGE MAPS

Italy Cell Coverage Map - OpenSignal